


Slightly Out Of Spec

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [114]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Cestus Deception - Steven Barnes, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 07:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26349499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: The Alphas are assigned to train squads of the latest design of clones.  Some expectations get reevaluated.(For the Hijinks Square ofGood Things Happen Bingo!)
Series: Soft Wars [114]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 71
Kudos: 389
Collections: Good Things Happen Bingo





	Slightly Out Of Spec

**Author's Note:**

> All definitions from mandoa.org

The snakes, 17 decides, were clearly shilling _ osik _1 from both palms and every kriffing one of the trainers from Prime to Priest was shoveling it down like it was _ jahaal’got _2.

“I do not _want_ to!”

“I do not _kriffing care_ what you _want_ you karking-”

“Language,” 17 sighs, and he’s man enough to admit the evil eye 6 cuts to him is well deserved.

“The littlest _ verd'ika _3 has the best calibrated audio receptors,” 98 chirps with that edge of mania that is slowly starting to tinge every one of their number.

The cadet in 6’s arms whines a grating ‘kriiiiiifffff’ and wriggles belly-first nearly right out of his grip.

“And the largest memory banks,” 98 finishes. Smug oozes from every word.

17 is a soldier, with all the patience that requires. Sometimes he wants to slap every single one of the second batch of Alphas. Not 99; 99 is as _ mandokarla _4 as it’s possible to get on this _ Manda _5-forsaken puddle. But those kids 51 to 98? If the snakes had been designing the organic equivalent of that treble-y comm feedback right to the base of the karking skull, then they should congratulate themselves on the _one_ thing they built right.

“I want to wear the _red one_!”

“You _cannot wear the red one_ ,” 6 hisses. He does an ungainly-looking shimmy-shuffle and the cadet ends up boots-up, 6’s arm pinning him to his side by the thighs. It won’t help him wrestle the biter into the cheery green pressure suit, but at least he didn’t drop the beastie on it’s empty karking bucket. “ _Ten-Ten_ is wearing the red one.”

“ _I’m_ Ten-Ten!”

“Yeah,” chimes the closest free-roaming cadet who 17 suspects is very badly lying. “ _He’s_ Ten-Ten, _I’m_ Two-Six, don’t you even know _that_?”

“Considering you two look _exactly kriffing alike_ no I did _not_ know that – would you _kriffing hold still_?”

“Nyooooo.”

“See that?” 98 is saying, plopped crisscross on the floor of the antigrav chamber’s entry with a cadet perched in his lap. Good system, he’s got the boy corralled neatly between his elbows and has both hands free to strap the incredibly tiny boots on one at a time. He looks like a right _ di'kut _6, but it works. “That is what we call a ‘complete disaster’. We don’t want to be complete disasters do we? No, we don’t! Cuz then our much smarter youngers watch us and judge us and secretly laugh.”

“Why don’t you shove something unpleasant somewhere uncomfortable?” 6 simpers with a grin like he’s happy to provide either object or insertion. “ _Nate_.”

“New rule, if I’m not allowed veto your everything-that-sticks, have-to-go-through-doors-sideways approach to armor, _you_ don’t get to object to _my name_. I’ll only make an exception if three whole syllables is too much for you.”

“ _No one_ is going to call you ‘Jangotat’ you pretentious little-”

“Language _please_ for _Manda’s sake_ ,” 17 pleads.

All four of 17’s cadets are arrested, eyes fastened to the byplay with alarming interest. He’s already getting sighs and backchat from them, he doesn’t need them swearing like a Jawa spacer getting a raw deal.

6 turns his smile like a murderer on 17. “Get. Karked,” he croons.

“What’s karked?”

No. _Hell_ no. “Don’t repeat that,” 17 snaps. He doesn’t have a hope in hell that that will work. But 17 is a soldier and is used to improvising. He grabs his weapon. “Check the baby.” Just enough of a heft to make the littlest laugh and not bounce his (far too fragile) little neck around dangerously, just enough of a drop that 17’s bitey-est cadet is too distracted with a tumbling squadmate and not, say, sticking his sharp little teeth into 17’s arm. _Again_. And then, because they’re all too small to have any sense yet, “make sure he won’t lose any fingers when we turn the gravity off.”

_Saved_! Thirty-Sixes rolls his eyes so hard his whole head wobbles with it, but he sets to inspecting the littlest’s greave clasps with furrowed-brow diligence. Fifty-Four does actually let him, thank Manda. Kid’s taking his time with his words but quiet ponds can hide great dangers: the kid’s already sharp-eyed and calculating, and he’s wrangled just enough dexterity to latch on to limbs and use all his body weight to make things difficult. 17 can see the beginnings of where he’ll be an unstoppable storm of a soldier one day. And the beginning of a right ache in the shebs one day sooner than that.

17 snaps Thirty-Sixes' tandem lead to Fifty-Four's loop and he’s one step closer to being done with this whole ordeal. He flicks a flood of insults 6’s way, and it’s only after he’s most of the way through the precise makeup of what’s between 6’s ears he notices the more banthashitting-prone of his squad has been watching over the heads of his squadmates.

It’s fine. He can’t read battlesign yet. 17 changes the last word to ‘clouds’, just in case. The brat smirks at him, and 17 has a moment of doubt. He _probably_ can’t read sign yet.

They were supposed to be subdued and obedient, the snakes said. Good practice for future command, the trainers said. Osik stinking so badly sensors could pick it up from orbit.

“Put your helmet on,” 17 orders. Twos-Four salutes, just a twist off of correct and 17 makes a note to show him _again_ how to do it properly.

One left.

“Front and center,” 17 says and he almost surprises himself how exhausted he sounds. He’s had this team for three hours and it feels like half a lifetime. He still has one last growth spurt left, why does he feel like he’s already tripped over into old age.

“I can do it myself,” the last cadet snips, and where the _kark_ does he keep getting data pads? 17 wrestles yet another from him (is this the fourth? Fifth? 17’s lost track. The mind is the first thing to go, isn’t it?)

Kark decorum. 17 drops to the ground, tugs Fifty-Fifty-Two into his lap and jails him in with his elbows.

He knows he looks like a di’kut. 98 looks like a di’kut. There’s no way to look like a professional karking soldier curled up on the floor like it’s storytime with an armful of a _not at all_ _cooperative_ cadet. He knows what he looks like, he doesn’t need 6’s meanest grin to rub it in. “Is idiocy in the air?” 17’s newly-least favorite brother wonders.

“Is it?” 98, Jangotat, whatever his name is, echoes back. He’s got his tongue caught in his teeth while he carefully threads fiddly little clasps. “Would you define ‘idiot’ as someone who’s ignored one of his soldiers long enough for them to prise open engine paneling?”

And yeah, that _is_ one of 6’s assignees that’s managed to figure out how to unbraid his tandem tether from his batcher and is now head-and-shoulders in a maintenance port.

“ _Kriff_!”

6 leaps, one arm full of cadet and one arm reaching.

“You’re my new favorite, 98,” 17 decides. Jangotat scoffs.

“Words are cheaper than the air they waste,” he deadpans, but he’s flushing under his non-regulation fluffy mop of a hairstyle. Dumb kid.

“Little brothers,” 17 murmurs into the curly baby hair between his arms, “always like to think they’re bigger than they are.” The cadet giggles.

“You are in charge,” 6 barks like a trainer, a cadet under each arm. “Ten-Sixteen this is your first mission and I am _trusting you_ with this. Keep your brothers _out of trouble_ until I have every single one of you in suits, understood?” The tandem cabling is entirely pointless now that one of his kids has exploited it. 6 skips it altogether.

Jangotat stares. 17 isn’t much better. “Why do you have handcuffs?”

“Because _I_ prepared for this mission, unlike some people.” Four decisive _snicks_ of cuffs between tandem strap loops, and two cadets’ belts are firmly cuffed to a third. “Ten-Sixteen,” 6 repeats. The cadet nods with all gravitas; he takes a firm hand of the cadet on either side.

17 will never, _ever_ tell 6 that that was karking brilliant.

“And big brothers,” 17 says, because if he’s assigned four impressionable cadets for a day to show he can command troops, he might as well mentor them, “all think they’re much cooler than they are. Remember that.”

“Ugh,” Fifty-Fifty-Two mutters. “I _know_.” 17 might have found a kindred spirit. He rustles the kid’s fuzz.

“Show me how you put the lowers on, then.”

* * *

They don’t necessarily have to go in with them. The snakes would probably prefer they didn’t, let them figure things out on their own. Saying that does nothing but make Jangotat suit up in spite. 17 doesn’t why he does the same. 6 doesn’t have a choice.

“What’s in your mouth? Where did you get that?”

“The recycler,” one of Jangotat’s cadets tattles immediately and 6 is suited up faster than either of them.

“Two-Six, Two-Six spit that out _right now_.”

“ _I’m_ Two-Six! He’s _Ten-Ten_!”

“Whichever one you are, you dumpster scavenging bottom feeder _don’t you dare run_!”

Ten-Ten and Two-Six puppy paddle across the antigrav chamber in the beginnings of a spirited chase. 6 soars in hot pursuit. 17 keeps firm hold of each of his cadets’ tandem straps.

“So here’s what we’re going to do,” Jangotat narrates as he bumps his cadets into antigrav in pairs and spools their tandem tethers out in careful rolls. “If you make me look good in front of the trainers I’ll show you how to do a kick flip. And remember this isn’t bribery, it’s exchange of services. Follow?”

“We’re angels,” one of the kids chimes. “And you’re gonna show us the kick flip as a reward.”

“I absolutely adore all of you.”

17 eyes his set. Four pairs of utterly guileless eyes stare back. “Three rules,” he decides, because whatever simpatico Jangotat has from being _so much closer_ in age to his cadets, 17 would never be able to pull that off. That pilot’s maneuverability 6 has like gravity is nothing more than a state of mind, rerouting his cadets before they can get more than a couple of meters off their course? 17 is built like a tank; he could never duplicate that. This is an exercise to introduce cadets to weightlessness, but more than that it is an exercise to introduce Alphas to command. 17 has to make his own way. “Only three. Don’t get hurt. Don’t let your squadmates get hurt. Don’t get caught.”

One grin wide enough to show off canines. One gummy smile like the sunrise. One wrinkled-nose beam filled with plots. One blandly innocent smirk that 17 does not trust for a second. Yeah, there’s no corralling this set. Best to just point them away from himself and pretend whatever chaos they wreak was entirely planned.

He snags them a pair at a time under armpits and jumps them across the antigrav field barrier. “Come back when you’re tired. Go nuts.”

They charge, war cries screeching.

‘Biddable design’ 17’s left _ rugam _7.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Shit. BS. Back  
> 2\. Good for the body, nutritious. Back  
> 3\. Little Soldier. Back  
> 4\. Having the *right stuff*, showing guts and spirit. The state of being the epitome of Mando virtue. Back  
> 5\. The collective soul or heaven. Back  
> 6\. Idiot. Back  
> 7\. Ball. Back  
> 
> 
> List of CCs
> 
> Squad Edee, Alpha 6
> 
> CC-1004: Gree  
> CC-1010: Fox  
> CC-1016: Colt (CC number is fanon)  
> CC-8826: Neyo
> 
> Squad Shebs, Alpha 17
> 
> CC-2224: Cody  
> CC-3635: Wolffe  
> CC-5052: Bly  
> CC-6454: Ponds
> 
> Squad Chekar, Alpha 98
> 
> (Unknown): Doom (the tattler)  
> (Unknown): Davijaan (the kickflip o holic)  
> Unnamed/undecided  
> Unnamed/undecided


End file.
